“…My entire 20s were spent living in a neighborhood which, either by default or by careful consideration, made me the writer that I am today, and I was afraid that if I moved away from it, I wouldn’t be able to write as well, as much, or at all.”

and this

“If my identity was a product of the neighborhood, and my novel was a product of my identity, was it wrong to presume that the novel—extrapolated to my ability to write anything at all, forever and ever again—was contingent upon my living at the corner of 34th Street and 34th Avenue?”